London, March 2015: SongLink has played a key role in the selection of the UK's entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest, as the song selected "Still In Love With You" was entered as a direct result of songwriter David Mindel reading about the BBC's open contest in SongLink last autumn. The electro-swing song was co-written by Mindel & Adrian Bax White, and performed by new duo Electro Velvet (Alex Larke and Bianca Nicholas) who will represent the UK at the 60th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna on May 23rd.

This was the first time in some years that the BBC had made it an open contest, which attracted hundreds of entries from professional and amateur songwriters. David Mindel is well known in the industry as a composer of advertising jingles and TV themes, and has previously had five songs reach the semi-finals of the BBC's A Song For Europe heats, most notably "Don't Throw It All Away'" co-written with Gary Benson and sung by The Shadows (4th in 1975); and "Someday" by Olivia Newton-John (6th in 1974). Mindel is a longtime SongLink subscriber, and explains how the UK's new Eurovision entry came about:

"I knew Bianca Nicholas through music manager Trevor Eyles, a big supporter of hers who promotes her as much as possible," says Mindel. "He sent me an e-mail to ask if I could do a new single for her. I started the ideas for a song and decided on elecro-swing as I love it. Then the song seemed to need to be a duet and Bianca was OK with that so I asked Alex. Meanwhile my co-writer and co-producer, Adrian Bax White (also a drummer who's worked with John McLaughlin among others), also started working on it. Then I saw the piece in SongLink on Eurovision entries being accepted by the BBC, so asked them all what they thought and they said it was worth a try. We quickly made the song presentable and entered it.

"On November 21st, we heard we were on the shortlist. In January I spoke to Executive Producer Guy Freeman and Helen Riddell at the BBC and decided on some changes. They then met Bianca and Alex and we continued to hone the track until we were all happy. I produced the track with Adrian and went to London from my home in France in early March to see the video shoot and meet with plugger Ron McCreight who's promoting the track; Eddie Levy of Chelsea Music who's publishing it; and Colin Peter & Steve Blacknell of Right Track Records who are distributing. We all had to keep quiet for about 6 weeks after we knew we'd won the contest."

David also commented on his previous Song For Europe entries: "Funnily enough, I think "Don't Throw It All Away" has done better than most ESC winners. My writing partner, Gary Benson, later released it himself and it became a Top 20 hit in 1975. John Farrar also cut it with Olivia Newton-John for a multi-platinum album; Dave & Sugar had a top 3 country hit with it (ASCAP Award); and Stacy Latissaw had a Top 10 R&B version in the US. It's also become a reggae standard thanks to Barrington Levy and others, and has also been cut by The Delphonics, Barry Manilow, Lori Balmer and a load more - but it only came 4th in the '75 heats!"

The full list of David's previous Song for Europe entries is as follows: